Book Review: The Truth in Small Doses

The Truth in Small Doses: Why We're Losing the War on Cancer--and How to Win It
Clifton Leaf
Simon & Schuster, 2013 ($27)

The U.S. Congress declared a “war on cancer” with the 1971 National Cancer Act and poured money into fighting the disease. Yet ever since, new cancer cases have risen three times faster than the U.S. population. According to Leaf, a journalist and cancer survivor, the act failed because of the flawed research culture it spawned. In this history of the fight against cancer, he describes how scientists often cannot secure funding for risky research in a culture that rewards competition over collaboration. The final section is a call to shift funding from narrow projects to broadly skilled researchers and urges patients to become better advocates for progressive change. Without such steps, Leaf says, the war on cancer has no chance of being won.

This article was originally published with the title "The Truth in Small Doses"

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Marissa Fessenden

Marissa is a freelance science journalist in Bozeman, Montana. She was an editorial intern with Scientific American from June 2012 through June 2013. Follow on Twitter @marisfessenden

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us). Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers.